The Association of Canadian Pension Management (ACPM) is a national non-profit volunteer-based organization acting as the informed voice of plan sponsors, administrators, and their service providers, advocating for improvements to the Canadian retirement income system. Earlier this year, it published papers on principles for mandatory public pension plans and the stability of defined benefits pension plan funding, and has worked on the ACPM Target Benefit Plan Supplemental Report, a supplement to its March 2012 paper on target benefit plans.

The panellists are actively involved in the ACPM and will discuss the above-mentioned papers as well as other major advocacy and education initiatives. Approximately 20 to 30 minutes will be left open for discussion and feedback from the audience. Here is your chance to share your ideas with Canada’s leading pension advocacy organization and weigh in on important issues facing the Canadian pension industry.

Life and health insurers are among Canada’s largest and most stable long-term investors, and have a strong appetite to do more. The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) has recently finalized a policy paper on long-term investments that makes a number of recommendations to increase the supply and attractiveness of this asset class. Meanwhile, governments in Canada continue to look at innovative public-private partnership structures to help fund the significant infrastructure deficit that exists, and the federal government has issued its first 50-year bond. Stephen Frank will share the CLHIA’s policy research and recommendations on enhancing the long-term investment market in Canada.

In her keynote presentation, Chantal Hébert, political commentator and columnist, will provide insight into public policy issues with an emphasis on the aging population. She will talk about Ontario and Québec pension solutions; their differences, advantages, and disadvantages; and how these may morph into a national solution.

A substantially revised standard of practice for actuarial evidence came into effect at the beginning of this year, including a newly added definition of actuarial evidence (AE) work. Some actuaries who have traditionally not viewed themselves as AE actuaries may find themselves doing work which meets the definition of AE work, or giving "expert" evidence in a dispute resolution proceeding, and therefore becoming subject to the new AE standard. In this session, actuaries with experience in litigation arising from pensions and other non-AE fields of practice will discuss considerations that come into play in determining whether or not an engagement is AE work. They will also briefly discuss how to distinguish between giving fact evidence and expert opinion evidence.

The Final Report on Canadian Pensioners’ Mortality (CPM) was released in February. It proposed a new set of mortality tables that are expected to be used for funding and accounting valuation purposes for a wide range of Canadian pension plans. Further review and analysis of the tables, by way of an industry-specific mortality study, as well as a detailed review of the methods used to develop them, have raised concerns and interesting questions. In this session, attendees will hear about these concerns from the general, practical, and theoretical perspectives. They will also hear from the Pension Experience Subcommittee, which prepared the tables.